China's control over 75% of Indonesia's nickel capacity raises concerns
Chinese companies currently control 75% of Indonesia's nickel refining capacity, raising concerns about supply chain resilience, according to a report by US-based global security non-profit the Center for Advanced Defense Studies (C4ADS).
The ownership by Chinese companies can potentially impact global supply chains for the critical component used in electric vehicle (EV) batteries, according to the report.
Global demand for nickel is expected to surge from around three million tonnes (mt) in 2023 to between 5mt and 6mt by 2040, primarily due to the expansion of clean energy technologies.
In 2023, Indonesia and China together produced 65% of the world's refined nickel.
From 2020 to 2023, Indonesia's portion of the worldwide refined nickel market increased from 23% to 27%, primarily as a result of raw nickel export bans implemented in 2014 and 2020.
However, much of this capacity is foreign-owned, with 33 companies holding Indonesia's 8mt refining capacity.
Shareholder overlap tracing revealed that Chinese companies control around three-quarters of this smelting capacity as of 2023.
The report found that Tsingshan Holding Group and Jiangsu Delong Nickel Industry, two Chinese companies, account for more than 70% of Indonesia's refining capacity as of 2023. This ownership concentration raises concerns about industry dominance.
Moreover, by 2030, Indonesia is projected to account for 44% of global refined nickel production.
"As Indonesia aims to use the nickel industry for economic growth, this substantial foreign influence could limit its ability to control and shape the industry for its benefit," the report added.
The dominance of Chinese companies in this sector places US and European automakers at a competitive disadvantage in the global EV market, especially amid increasingly restrictive trade policies with China, the report said.
In an effort to make Indonesian nickel more accessible to the US market, Chinese companies have approached Indonesian and South Korean companies for potential partnerships to reduce their stakes in smelters, reported Reuters.
Tsingshan has begun selling stakes in some of its smelters, including a 30% share of PT Jiu Long Metal Industry to Indonesian state miner Aneka Tambang in October.
Indonesian Mining Minister Bahlil Lahadalia stated last month that President Prabowo Subianto has formed a task force to develop the downstream mineral industry through domestic financing, aiming to "gradually reduce the perception that foreigners got the most benefits", according to Reuters.
"China's control over 75% of Indonesia's nickel capacity raises concerns" was originally created and published by Mining Technology, a GlobalData owned brand.
The information on this site has been included in good faith for general informational purposes only. It is not intended to amount to advice on which you should rely, and we give no representation, warranty or guarantee, whether express or implied as to its accuracy or completeness. You must obtain professional or specialist advice before taking, or refraining from, any action on the basis of the content on our site.
Hashtags
Try Our AI Features
Explore what Daily8 AI can do for you:
Comments
No comments yet...
Related Articles
Politico
42 minutes ago
- Politico
Trump wants one thing from the NATO summit. Europe is going to give it to him.
President Donald Trump wants one big thing from next week's NATO leader's summit — and European leaders are itching to give it to him. That doesn't guarantee the president will be satisfied. The 32-nation transatlantic military alliance will pledge to dramatically increase spending on defense to 5 percent of gross domestic product — 3.5 percent on hard military expenditures and 1.5 percent on more loosely defined defense-related efforts. The commitment, a watershed moment that could rebalance transatlantic security, will allow Trump, who's been demanding Europe pick up more of the burden for its own defense, a significant victory on the world stage. 'There is no way they would be going to 5 percent without Trump,' said one administration official, who was granted anonymity to share the president's views. 'So he sees this as a major win, and it is.' Trump intends to deliver a speech Wednesday at the summit's conclusion heralding the new spending pledge and his own catalytic role. But Trump's victory won't prevent him from pressuring countries to do even more, faster, which could prove difficult for some in the alliance. Spain, the NATO member with the lowest defense spending rate, isasking for an exemption from the new pledge and there is broad disagreement over the date by which this spending pledge is to be met. 'They're thinking of a timeline that is, frankly, a decade,' said Ivo Daalder, a former U.S. ambassador to NATO under President Barack Obama. 'Trump is probably thinking of a timeline that is by the end of this decade, if not sooner. That's where I think [the summit] can blow up.' While NATO allies are at odds over the details of the security pledge, there is broad agreement about the overriding importance of keeping Trump happy and maintaining a united front in The Hague, with Russia's war in Ukraine nowhere near an end and America's foreign policy focus increasingly shifting to Asia and the Middle East. In service of that aim, summit organizers have streamlined the meeting, reducing what is typically a two-day affair to 24 hours and focusing it around Trump's pledge, which has been negotiated ahead of time, and almost nothing else. 'He has to get credit for the 5 percent — that's why we're having the summit,' said one European defense official, granted anonymity to speak candidly about private government-level conversations. 'Everything else is being streamlined to minimize risk.' Asked about the pledge on Friday, Trump expressed support for allies spending more but added the 5 percent target shouldn't apply to the U.S., which is at 3.4 percent. Trump's saber-rattling toward Iran,teasing the possibility that the U.S. would join Israel's military campaign to destroy the country's nuclear development infrastructure and potentially topple the regime, has injected new uncertainty into a summit NATO officials had hoped to tightly script. But as of Friday, there were no formal plans to meet with allies to discuss the situation in the Middle East, though it could provide an opportunity for the president to tout the need for increased defense spending. NATO officials decided to pare down the agenda before Trump abruptly left the G7 halfway through the two-day program, a move that the administration official later attributed largely to his impatience with largely ceremonial multilateral meetings. In The Hague, as was the case in Canada, there will be no lengthy communique, only short statements about new commitments. The shortened NATO schedule allows for only two main events: a welcome dinner at the Dutch royal family's castle and a single meeting of the North Atlantic Council rather than the usual two or three, according to five people familiar with the planning. It is not clear if Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy, invited only to the summit's opening dinner on Tuesday, will attend. And there won't be a meeting of NATO's Ukraine council in The Hague. It's another concession to the U.S., which, despite the urging of some allies to hold such a session, wasn't interested in heightening the focus on the war that Trump has been unable to resolve as he promised during last year's campaign. Paring down the summit is also a way for NATO allies to gloss over the persistent divide among countries about a critical detail of their pledge: how soon they'll be expected to reach the new spending benchmark. While the U.S. — and countries in eastern Europe already above the 3.5 percent benchmark — prefer a deadline of 2030, smaller countries, struggling to reach the new goals, want until 2032 or 2035. NATO Secretary General Mark Rutte floated 2032 as a compromise but, amid pushback from several smaller countries in recent days, the final wording of the pledge could give countries until 2035 to hit 5 percent, according to a European official familiar with private negotiations. 'For a lot of countries, this is the whole issue,' the European defense official continued. 'It's not so difficult to say, 'Yes, we will, we will agree.' But it's very difficult to find the right path and to actually find the budget for that path. So that's why nobody, nobody wants to talk about it anymore.' It's possible that the matter of the timeline won't be resolved during the summit. 'The priority is really to announce success in The Hague,' said another European official, also granted anonymity because they were not authorized to speak publicly. 'The longer-term perspective is less important.' NATO officials and European allies are determined to avoid a repeat of the 2018 summit in Brussels, which Trump upended by threatening to withdraw the U.S. from the alliance altogether if other countries didn't get serious about reaching the 2 percent spending benchmark they'd agreed to four years earlier. More than anything since, Russia's invasion of Ukraine in February 2022 altered defense calculations for Europe, pushing several countries to meet the 2 percent threshold and prompting Sweden and Finland, after decades of neutrality, to join the alliance. With the war ongoing and Trump back in office, the increased spending commitments are at least as much about Europe's long-term defense as they are appeasing the unpredictable Trump. In his speech this week at London's Chatham House, Rutte began to publicly lay out NATO's new capability targets — the amount of military equipment needed to implement a defense plan against a potential Russian attack — that defense ministers agreed to earlier this month. The alliance, Rutte said, needs 'a 400 percent increase in air and missile defence … thousands more armored vehicles and tanks, millions more artillery shells, and we must double our enabling capabilities, such as logistics, supply, transportation, and medical support.' Over time, that will lead to Europe carrying more of the burden for its own defense — and having more sway within the alliance. 'You now have a road map for Europeanizing NATO that you never had before, and that ultimately will lead to a more successful alliance,' Daalder said. 'Everybody wants to move in that direction, the U.S. and the Europeans.' Trump has long groused that the U.S. shoulders too much of the cost for defending the world and has pushed more than just NATO members to increase their defense budgets. The administration is also pressuring Japan, a non-NATO ally pursuing a new trade deal with Washington, to boost its defense spending significantly with the Pentagon describing the 5 percent benchmark as a new 'global standard.' It's a standard many countries may struggle to reach. Spain, far from the alliance's eastern flank, has been difficult to convince, as have other smaller countries such as Italy and Belgium that are still not hitting the 2 percent level the alliance adopted in 2014. Even Great Britain, one of Europe's biggest military powers, has balked at the 2032 deadline. Laying out a plan for boosting defense spending, Prime Minister Keir Starmer promised the U.K. would be at 2.5 percent by 2027 and expressed confidence about getting to 3 percent by 2034, at the latest. Paul McLeary contributed to this report.
News24
an hour ago
- News24
Chris Roper: African audiences lead the global shift to social news
The 2025 Reuters Digital News Report reveals that news media in Kenya, Nigeria, and South Africa are among the world's most trusted, even as social media and video platforms overtake traditional outlets, writes Chris Roper. Revelations of the 2025 The Reuters Digital News Report (DNR), now in its 14th iteration, include how audiences are moving towards social media and video platforms as a source of news, and the way this is contributing to the already eroding influence of traditional news organisations and 'supercharging a fragmented alternative media environment containing an array of podcasters, YouTubers, and TikTokkers. At the same time, chatbots powered by generative AI are emerging as a new way to access information, especially with people under 35, raising concerns about a potential loss of search referral traffic to publisher websites and apps.' There are still opportunities for news organisations to build different relationships with their readers, though, and arguably, this is especially so for African news publishers. Reliable content When describing how this applies to news globally, the authors write, 'Despite this, audiences remain mostly sceptical about news they find on both social and AI platforms, partly driven by concerns about access to reliable content. Online influencers and politicians are seen as the biggest threats in this regard, while the majority expect generative AI to make the news cheaper to make, but less accurate and less trustworthy. These concerns could offer opportunities for publishers, as audiences say they still look to news brands when checking for reliable information, ahead of sources such as politicians, influencers and trusted personal contacts.' Brokering a relationship that rests on trust is, of course, not an easy thing. Potentially, Kenya, Nigeria and South Africa are well placed to do this, given that there still exists a high level of trust in news in those countries. The DNR includes a fourth African country, Morocco, but it is somewhat of an outlier in terms of the survey. Data for Kenya, Nigeria, and South Africa are based on surveys that are representative of younger, English-speaking online news users only, rather than their respective national populations, which makes it difficult to draw comparisons with Morocco, where the survey was targeted at a more heterogeneous group. The report's authors advise caution when directly comparing data points between these African markets and countries with very high internet penetration where the online sample is more broadly representative of the national population. Bearing that caveat in mind, several instructive comparisons can still be made. High levels of trust in Nigeria and Kenya Nigeria and Kenya stand out with significantly high levels of overall trust in news. Nigeria recorded the highest overall trust among all 48 markets surveyed at 68% (ranking 1st), and Kenya was close behind at 65% (ranking 3rd). Trust in news in Nigeria has increased since 2021. South Africa also reported a relatively high trust level at 55% (ranking 5th overall), well above the global average of 40%. There is something of a red flag for South Africa, which has experienced a six percentage-point drop in trust since 2022 (from 61%), with almost all news brands seeing a decline. Morocco has one of the lowest levels of trust in news among the surveyed countries, at just 28% (ranking 42nd), significantly lower than its African counterparts. The real opportunity for media in Africa, perhaps, comes from this category of trust in media, and anxiety about what is real and what is false online. A significant majority of all four countries express high concern about distinguishing true from false news information online, with the African region showing the highest concern globally (73%). Both Kenya and Nigeria report 73% concern, and South Africa has 'high concern about information integrity' at 67%. Morocco's concern is at 54%. This contrasts with Western Europe, which has the lowest levels of concern (46%). Online influencers and personalities are perceived as a major threat for false or misleading information across all markets (47% global average). This concern is particularly high in Kenya (59%), Nigeria (58%), and South Africa (56%, and specifically for TikTok). Morocco also sees online influencers/personalities (52%) as the biggest threat, followed by national politicians (30%). All four countries exhibit a strong reliance on digital platforms and social media for news, which the report reveals is a trend common in the Global South. Social media is a primary source, and the report points out that this is the first year that social media has displaced television as the top way Americans get news, with the proportion of news consumers accessing news via social media and video networks in the United States (54%) overtaking both TV news (50%) and news websites/apps (48%) for the first time. This is going to be a significant strategic issue for traditional news publishers in Africa. How to take advantage of move to social media Instead of succumbing to the existential threat of the ever-accelerating move towards social media, how do they take advantage? The social media landscape is a fragmented one, with the report revealing that six online networks now reach more than 10% weekly with news content, compared to just two a decade ago, but African countries frequently rank among the top global users of social media platforms for news consumption, placing them in what we could term a social-first category alongside countries in Latin America and parts of Asia. This is particularly the case for video-centric platforms like YouTube and TikTok. African countries show some of the highest weekly usage of YouTube for news. More than half of the sampled populations in Kenya (54%, up five percentage points), Morocco (49%), and Nigeria (49%, up five percentage points) reported using YouTube for news, with South Africa also showing significant usage at 42%, although this is down five percentage points since the 2024 DNR. This positions them alongside top Asian countries, such as India (55%) and Thailand (55%), and significantly above the global average of 30%. TikTok and Facebook still major players TikTok is growing rapidly as a network for news consumption. Kenya is at 38%, South Africa at 33%, Nigeria at 28%, and Morocco at 24%, which is notably higher than the average use in the United States (12%) and Europe (11%), and the global average of 16%. Facebook is still a major player when it comes to news consumption. Nigeria leads with 65% weekly news usage, followed by Kenya (52%), South Africa (50%), and Morocco (47%). The global average is 36%. WhatsApp is also widely used for news in Africa, contrasting with the global average of 19%. Nigeria shows 53% weekly news usage, Kenya 46%, South Africa 41%, and Morocco 30%. Instagram's news usage is also considerable for Nigeria at 41%, Morocco at 32%, and Kenya at 26%. In South Africa, Instagram is the lowest of the six social media platforms covered by the report, with only 15% of those surveyed indicating they used it for news, a two percentage-point drop from 2024 and below the global average of 19%. Usage of social media platform X for news in African countries is mixed, with Kenya at 42%, Nigeria at 49% (a nine percentage point increase), Morocco at 11%, and South Africa at 16%. Kenya and Nigeria are way above the global average of 12%. READ | Online hate speech hits Africa, social media firms told to act Amid the decline in consumption of traditional news media, there is some hope in terms of consumption of local news in South Africa. The country stands out with the highest interest in local news (60%) among the surveyed countries, significantly higher than the average interest in local news across 45 markets (32%). This question was not asked for Kenya and Nigeria. Interestingly, audiences in these African countries, as well as in Asia, show notably higher comfort levels with news content produced mostly by AI with some human oversight compared to Europe. South Africa's comfort level is 34%, higher than the USA (19%) and Europe (15%). This might prove to be an opportunity for African news publishers to embark on a transparent implementation of AI into their news flow, one that includes audiences in the process. Instead of a challenge to editorial integrity, this could be a mechanism to build trust with readers. News avoidance A major threat, though, is the high levels of news avoidance. Globally, the DNR authors tell us, 'trust and low engagement in the news are closely connected with 'avoidance', an increasing challenge in a high-choice news environment, where news is often upsetting in different ways. Across markets, four in 10 (40%) say they sometimes or often avoid the news, up from 29% in 2017 and the joint highest figure we've ever recorded (along with 2024).' News avoidance varies among the four African countries, with Kenya reporting a 50% news avoidance, South Africa 41%, Nigeria 35%, and Morocco 39%. The DNR identifies some key threats to traditional media, such as the continued reliance on social media, video platforms, and online aggregators for news, the pressure on business models, attacks on press freedom, and the emergence of AI platforms and chatbots as new sources of news. It's not all doom and gloom for African news publishers, though. In some cases, they can learn from the rest of the world, but in other cases, they have the opportunity to take advantage of the differences in their own local environments. Kenya, Nigeria, and South Africa have some of the highest levels of trust in news globally, which can potentially be leveraged to position themselves as reliable sources amid growing scepticism about information on social and AI platforms. - Chris Roper is a deputy CEO at Code for Africa. Note: The Africa launch of the Reuters DNR takes place on Monday, 23 June, (13:00 CAT), hosted by Reuters Institute of Journalism in partnership with Code for Africa. A presentation by lead author Nic Newman will be followed by a panel discussion featuring Ajibola Amzat from the Centre for Collaborative Investigative Journalism, Justine Wanda from Fake Woke and Jillian Green from Daily Maverick. Sign up now.
Chicago Tribune
2 hours ago
- Chicago Tribune
Dick's Sporting Goods seeks village financial support for Orland Square House of Sports concept store
Dick's Sporting Goods is providing more details about its proposed House of Sports concept store it wants to build in Orland Park, and is telling villlage officials it will need financial help from them to make it work. The chain has a store in the village and is looking to convert the former Sears anchor space at Orland Square shopping center. The House of Sports store, which the chain has opened elsewhere around the country, would be at least twice the size of its existing store in the village. It would feature 'experiential' attractions such as a fenced-in outdoor field, indoor climbing wall and batting cages, a Dick's executive told Orland Park officials. The 200,000-square-foot Sears store, which was an anchor since the mall opened in 1976, closed in spring 2018. Other options, including a multi-screen theater, have been proposed in the past. 'We're really interested in really upping our game here so to speak,' Vincent Corno, senior vice president of real estate for the chain, recently told village trustees. He called House of Sports the chain's 'latest and greatest prototype,' and said the Pittsburgh-based company now has 22 such stores and expects 35 in total by the end of this year. He said the goal is 75 by the end of 2027. 'We're growing fast,' he told trustees. Corno didn't say how much the company would need as far as financial support by Orland Park, although the village is studying creating a tax increment financing district that could aid the project. Corno leads the strategic direction for Dick's real estate and facilities functions across all business lines, including its Golf Galaxy subsidiary. This includes everything from future market development planning to site and lease negotiations, according to the company's website. A typical Dick's location is about 50,000 square feet while House of Sports stores can typically be about 120,000 square feet. The company looks to convert big, empty mall anchors, and has worked with Simon Property Group, Orland Square's owner, on different House of Sports projects, Corno said. House of Sports stores not only boost sales compared with Dick's regular stores, based on square footage, but also support in-line stores in a mall and can attract new tenants to a mall, Corno said. 'These are not inexpensive outlays,' Corno said. He called it a transformational investment and said with purchasing the property and building out the space, a typical House of Sports can cost $40 million or $50 million to complete. While not a new retail concept, experiential shopping has gripped the industry. Things such as a 17,000-square-foot fenced-in field that could be used for soccer and baseball in the spring and summer and hockey in the winter would be planned, Corno said. Inside, a climbing wall and golf driving bays would let customers try out new equipment. Having a House of Sports benefits other tenants in the mall, and attracts new ones, Corno said. He said their customers patronize other mall stores, and the influx of new revenue ultimately flows to the mall's operator. 'All boats are rising with this type of investment,' Corno said. He said the wing of Orland Square where Sears was based has seen tenant vacancies rise since the anchor closed. 'Those mall wings suffer when the anchor is dark,' Corno said. Dick's plans to buy the entire property, including the two-level building which sits on 16 acres, and a vast parking lot. He said the company is working on whether it wants to use both floors or keep House of Sports on the upper level and lease space on the lower level to other tenants. He said it's possible Dick's could use the loading dock and parking lot space on the lower level of the building's east side for the fenced field. 'We're in the very early stage of figuring out what goes where,' Corno said. Dick's looked at trying to reconfigure its store in the Orland Park Place shopping center on La Grange Road south of the mall, but that site didn't work, Corno said. The company also looked at buying land in the village on the south side of 159th Street west of La Grange Road, near Costco, he said. Corno said 'land values were crazy' and that 'we couldn't justify that acquisition.' He said the company, however, wants to see if there is a commitment from the village to help financially before it moves ahead with the House of Sports project. Corno said if the village didn't help financially, Dick's would continue to operate it existing store. He said that should it go ahead with House of Sports, the operator of Orland Park Place would easily be able to fill that space. Trustees said they were supportive of the company's expansion plans. 'This would be a great addition' to the village, Trustee Michael Milani said. 'It looks like a great concept.' 'Experiential retail is where people are heading,' Milani said. Trustee Dina Lawrence called the proposal 'a very compelling business plan.' Orland Park officials are studying the potential creation of a tax increment financing district as an incentive tool for filling the long-vacant Sears store. Trustees passed a resolution in March to allow TIF funds to be used to redevelop the space, at the southeast corner of the mall. TIF money can be used to pay for public improvements as well as incentives for developers. Orland Park is also spending up to $30,000 for adviser SB Friedman to study whether the property, including the adjacent large parking lot, qualifies as a TIF. Factors such as blighted conditions, including declining property values, are considered in determining whether a property or multiple properties qualify as a TIF under Illinois law. The village has said part of the large parking lot hugging the Sears space would need to be used to provide additional stormwater storage for the mall and surrounding properties. TIF funds could be used to pay for that. 'We are at capacity with what we have' now around the mall perimeter, Village Manager George Koczwara, village said at the committee meeting. While Simon owns the in-line store space and common areas, mall anchors own what are called their own pads, including parking. California-based Cubework owns the Sears property, and at one point announced plans to convert the store into a 'co-working mall.' Corno said that Dick's has a tentative handshake deal with Cubework to buy the site. Before Cubework's ownership, plans had been proposed for a 10-screen 45,000-square-foot AMC Theatre along with retailers and restaurant tenants on the upper level of the Sears space. That came before the announcement of the store's closing, and theater plans never came to fruition, partly due to the COVID-19 pandemic. Cubework had looked at using the interior space to rent kiosks and pop-up spaces to small businesses, offering short-term leases.
